


Coping With Breakups

by KikiKatie



Category: Community
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-05
Updated: 2010-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 01:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KikiKatie/pseuds/KikiKatie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie and Jeff get dumped at the exact same time for the exact same reason. Naturally, they learn to cope together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coping With Breakups

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for lilyayl, who asked for a Jeff/Annie fic that didn't ignore the whole Jeff/Slater thing, and that was about them spending time together and then realizing that they'd fallen for each other. I hope you like it!

Would it have happened if they hadn't both been dumped at the same time?

There's that special bond that forms between two people when they're dumped at the same time. And Jeff and Annie were dumped at the same time. The EXACT same time, at opposite ends of campus, for the exact same reason.

Their friends.

"You don't like my friends?" Jeff asked Michelle as he followed her to her car after class. "You're dumping me because you don't like my friends?"

"No, I've dated guys whose friends I haven't liked," she explained. "I always just ignored them."

"So ignore mine. I do most of the time."

"And that would be the reason I'm breaking up with you. It's impossible to ignore your friends. They're always around, needing something from you. A ride to the comic book store, someone to count out their pills, someone to proof read their paper. They're always around and you never say no."

"Wait, you're dumping me for being a good friend?"

Michelle put her bag in the trunk and turned to face Jeff, a gentle look on her face. "Look, I'm not mad or anything. This isn't an angry breakup. I don't hate you because you wronged me. In fact, I think it's kind of sweet that you care about your friends as much as you do. But that kind of relationship… it's not for me. It's just not going to work out."

She kissed him on the cheek, got in her car, and drove away, leaving Jeff standing in the parking lot, not really sure of what just happened.

On the other side of campus, things were a lot less pleasant for Annie.

Annie was hysterical, as she usually was when things weren't going her way. And unlike Jeff, Vaughn clearly did have an immunity to her tears. At least he was gentleman enough to take his shirt off and offer it to her as a handkerchief.

He'd written her a song. A breakup song. All the previous songs he'd written for her had been sweet, if not a little stupid. Okay, really stupid. But it was the thought that counted. So when Vaughn had asked her to meet him in the quad because he'd written a song for her, she was very excited.

He was only three lines into, "Your Friends are B's, So I Need You To Leave" when Annie realized he was dumping her.

"Your friends are toxic, Annie," he was saying. "I've known it since I was dating Britta. They seem nice, but that's all just an illusion they're using so they can get into your mind and poison you…. Whoa… "illusion they're using"… I gotta put that into a song."

"But I don't understand! Why did you start dating me when you knew I was friends with them?" Annie wailed, blowing her nose into Vaughn's t-shirt.

He stroked her face gently. "Because you were sweet, babe. And I thought I could take it, for you. But I can't. I've let their poison into my air for far too long. I have to break free."

And with that he stood up and picked up his guitar. Annie tried to give him his shirt back, but he just said, "No, keep it. To remember me by."

Then he was gone, tossing an absent minded "Lates!" over his shoulder.

\--------

They collided in the cafeteria.

Literally collided.

Jeff wasn't carrying anything but an empty binder, but Annie had grabbed herself three chocolate chip cookies and bottle of chocolate milk.

It wouldn't have taken much to set her off again, so naturally being covered in milk and cookies sent her over the edge.

"Geez, Annie, I'm sorry," Jeff said, trying to calm her down. But he really didn't have it in him to talk Annie off the ledge tonight. Thankfully, it was evening by this point, and there weren't many people lurking about the Greendale cafeteria after sunset. He led Annie over to a table and tried to get her to settle down.

Taking a breath to brace himself, he asked, "What is it? Did you get a B on a test? Did Chang yell at you? Did the Human Being jump out at you from behind the bushes again?"

Annie took a shuddering breath and said, "He dumped me."

"What?"

"Vaughn dumped me."

Jeff let out a little chuckle, kind of disbelieving the whole situation. Of course, the chuckle was misinterpreted. "Oh, of course," Annie said, becoming hysterical again. "It's funny that he dumped me. Because he's just a hippie that nobody liked and now you're all just thrilled that he broke my heart!"

"Annie, calm down," Jeff said, trying to control the eruption. "That's not why I was laughing."

She sniffled. "Yeah right."

"No, really. I was laughing because… I just got dumped, too."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

Jeff raised an eyebrow at her.

"Not good that you got dumped!" Annie was quick to clarify. "Just good that you weren't laughing at me."

Jeff nodded, and a silence settled between them for several moments.

"Sorry you got dumped," Annie finally said, miserably.

"You, too," Jeff responded, just as miserably.

======

The group understood this "getting dumped" bond that Jeff and Annie had formed, and tried not to feel left out when the two dumpees went off and did things on their own, like eat ice cream and go shopping.

Yeah, Jeff was acting like a girl. But he'd never been dumped before, so he didn't really know how you were supposed to act. So he pretty much just followed what Annie did.

Annie hadn't really ever been truly dumped before either. Unless you count finding out that your boyfriend is gay at the exact same moment as everyone else in your class as being dumped. And at that point in time, she'd handled it by taking a few too many pills and having a severe meltdown in the school cafeteria.

So Annie didn't really know how to act in the situation of having just been dumped, either. She was most just going with her gut. And her gut told her that lots of ice cream, spending money, and watching movies was going to help.

Her parents had been shockingly cool about Jeff coming over and watching movies with her. Alone. In her bedroom. All she had to say was, "This is my friend Jeff. He just got dumped, too." And it was fine.

Jeff really liked spending time with Annie. After the first week of "oh my god, I'm so alone, I'm never going to find anyone again so I might as well not even bath" that came from the both of them, he found that having someone to talk to actually helped.

And in talking through things, they both realized that maybe they weren't as upset about being dumped as they thought they were.

"I mean, he was really sweet and everything," Annie said when they were halfway through the third week of their "Coping With Breakups" workshop. "He wrote me songs, and he held my hand, but…"

"There's a but?" Jeff asked, looking up from his tub of ice cream.

"I didn't… get him. He wasn't smart. At all. But he thought he was. It was hard to really talk to him. One time I tried to tell him that corn syrup isn't actually corn and maple syrup mixed together, and he gave me this look like I was the stupid one. Like, 'Oh, sweet little Annie, buying into the propaganda and the media.'"

"And his songs sucked," Jeff chimed in.

Annie looked down at her hands, "Not the ones about me, right?"

Jeff considered saying, "No, of course not. All the songs about you were beautiful and deep." But they'd agreed to be completely honest about each other's exes, so he said, "No, Annie. Not even those were good."

She looked at him like she was going to cry, so he soldiered on. "He wrote 65 songs about you. 65! And you only dated for three months! You know what that says?"

"That I inspired him."

"That he didn't put a lot of work into them. Annie, you deserve someone who only writes you one song, because he spends so much time trying to make it perfect that he never finishes it."

Her face softened, and she still looked like she might cry, but for a different reason. "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Jeff just shrugged.

The next day, it was his turn to realize he wasn't that crazy about his ex.

"She was really condescending to me almost all the time. She talked to me like I was some dumb kid."

Annie nodded, taking another spoonful out of the vat of cookie dough that was setting on the bed between them. Yes, a freaking vat of cookie dough. Jeff didn't realize they existed before this whole thing, but now that he did, he wanted to kiss the person who thought of it. "It's the teacher/student dynamic. It was hard for her to let go of, even when you weren't her student anymore."

"I don't know," Jeff said. "I think it was more than that. I really think she thought she was better than me."

"Why would she think that?"

"Maybe because her degree was legitimate and I have to go back to school to fucking Greendale Community College to get mine."

"Well, it's not like she has that much room to be superior. She does teach there, after all."

Jeff smirked, but continued on. "I think that's what maybe attracted me to her in the first place. She was confident and she commanded respect."

"Are you saying that's a bad thing?"

He thought about it, taking another unreasonably large spoonful of cookie dough and putting it in her mouth. "No… but I think I'd prefer an in between. Someone who has confidence, but who doesn't think she's better than me."

They were quiet for awhile before Annie said, "She's not better than you, though. Not by a long shot."

=======

Throughout their whole time coping together, they only made out once. They were doing a double feature of Breakfast at Tiffany's and True Lies. Annie's parents were gone for the day antiquing or something boring that people like Annie's parents would do.

It wasn't like they looked at each other and there was this irresistible pull of sexual tension and they just couldn't keep their hands off each other for any longer.

No, nothing like that. They had simply started talking about their exes kissing abilities. Annie seemed very interested in whether or not Michelle was a good kisser, and why. She made him go into very vivid detail. But when Jeff turned the tables and asked about Vaughn, Annie clammed up.

"Seriously? You made me go into detail about how much she used her front tooth. And you're going to get all shy when I ask about Vaughn?"

"It's not that I'm embarrassed to talk about it or anything. I just… I don't think I can make an objective claim about his kissing abilities because I'm so under experienced. Other than my gay ex-boyfriend, and yourself, Vaughn is the only guy I've ever kissed."

"Well, I'm the best," Jeff said, smirking, "So just compare him to me."

Annie rolled her eyes. "I don't think the debate kiss is a fair and accurate sample. I took you completely by surprise."

"Okay, then, let's try again now," Jeff suggested. And for once in his life, he wasn't suggesting a kiss as a prelude to anything else. There was nothing lascivious or leading in his suggestion. Strangely enough, his intent was purely scientific.

Annie didn't even blink. It didn't strike her as strange. Jeff had merely suggested that they reenact the moment for more accurate results.

So, sitting there on her bed, they leaned toward each other and their lips met.

They then spent a very long time making out.

It wasn't like, once their lips met, some fireworks exploded inside of them, or something clicked in their brain and they realized that they had to have each other right now, or that they loved each other, or something ridiculous like that.

They were both simply still dealing with the hurt feelings of being mercilessly dumped. And it had been awhile since either of them had gotten any action. And Annie was so soft and nice smelling, and Jeff was so muscled and sturdy. So they fooled around a little bit. For a few hours.

And it wasn't even weird for them afterwards. They simply straightened the bed clothes, put in another movie, and when he left that night she simply called after him, "See you at school tomorrow."

There was nothing weird going on for either of them.

Or at least, nothing weird that any of them really knew about. Because there was something working, slowly but surely, in the very furthest corner of thing minds. The kind of thing that lurks in those dark corners and then, just when you think everything is going to be fine, it jumps out at you and screams, "Here I am! And I was here all the time!" and scares the shit out of you.

======

The group figured that once Jeff and Annie got over their respective breakups that they'd stop with the private hangouts and the cookie dough socials for two and the just general being-by-themselves-ness that had been going on.

And they did stop with all the girly post-breakup stuff once they were reasonably over the fact that they'd been dumped. But they didn't stop their one on one hanging out.

The first time they ventured outside of Annie's room, sans junk food, it was to go out to eat. To a really nice restaurant. It wasn't a date. They just wanted to go.

"This restaurant is supposed to be amazing," Jeff had said to Annie as they drove to school. Yeah, they did that together now, too.

"Why don't you just go?" Annie asked.

"It's a really nice place. You can't just go by yourself. You have to go with someone."

"It's not fair that all these things have to be 'couple' things. If this restaurant is as good as you say it's supposed to be, then I want to go, too!"

Jeff shrugged. "Why don't we just go together?"

"You and me?"

"Yeah. Just two friends, going to dinner. We can beat the system, Annie. We can punch it in the face and say 'We don't need significant others to do the things we want to do'."

So they went to a really fancy, really expensive French restaurant, dressed to impressed. Jeff picked her up, and paid for dinner, and they shared their food with each other. But it wasn't a date.

They'd also kissed once. Or twice. Not on that night, but at other times.

The first time was when he walked her to her door after they went to see a movie. Usually, he just dropped her off in front of the house and didn't get out of the car. But her parents were out of town, so the house was dark and empty, and it was late, and there could be people lurking inside the house waiting for Annie to come home. Alone. So he walked her to the door, waited for her to turn on the lights, and had a look around. And after saying goodnight, before he turned and left, he leaned down and kissed her.

It wasn't an awkward date kiss where there was a weird silence while they tried to figure out if they should kiss each other. And it wasn't a handsy, tonguey kiss. It was just a friend kiss. That went on for a few seconds longer than a normal friends kiss would.

And it wasn't at all awkward afterward. He just said goodnight again and left, and then when he picked her up for school the next morning, everything was normal.

The second kiss would have been really romantic if they were, you know… romantically inclined toward each other and not just friends.

It was another Concert Under the Stars type thing in the quad, and they were sitting on top of Annie's grandmother's blanket, listening to a not-entirely-terrible local band playing a sappy love song, and the sky was completely clear and they could see all the stars and it just felt like the thing to do, to lean in and kiss each other. Again, things were totally not weird at all afterward.

But Jeff was pretty sure one of their friends saw them.

"I think we're all just wondering when it's going to go back to normal with you guys not spending practically every waking second together," Britta explained to Jeff as they walked to class one day.

"We found out that we happen to just really like spending time together. What, are you guys feeling left out?" he teased.

"I'm not, but some of the others… they might be, a little."

"It's no different than Abed and Troy spending all their time together."

"Yeah, but…" Britta trailed off, giving Jeff a look.

"What?"

"You guys aren't like… involved, are you?"

"What!?"

"Because, I think that would be a bad idea. You'd be each other's rebounds, and when that ends, because the rebounds ALWAYS end, it might really hurt your friendship-"

"Britta, we are not dating. It's not like that at all."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." He thought he was sure. He wasn't actually sure, but he didn't really realize this at the time.

But Britta had opened her mouth, and the things she said couldn't be unsaid, and Jeff suddenly discovered that he and Annie had been dating for over a month without realizing it.

And now that he realized it, things were weird. He felt awkward. He didn't know what to do or say.

"Are you okay?" Annie asked him as they ate dinner at their favorite pizza place downtown. "You've been acting strange all day. Are you getting sick?" She leaned across the table to put her hand on his forehead to gauge his temperature. A week ago this wouldn't bother him at all, but now Britta had made him all aware of his bothersome feelings, and all he could think about was how soft Annie's hands were and how nice her lotion smelled.

"I'm fine," he snapped as he jerked away from her hand. Annie slowly pulled her hand away with a confused pout.

And for the first time in weeks, things were awkward between Jeff and Annie.

=======

Jeff spent the painfully silent car ride home thinking. And this is what he came up with.

"Annie, we have to stop this," he said when he pulled into Annie's driveway.

"Stop what?" Annie asked. "What is going on? You've been acting so weird."

"We have to stop this relationship."

"Relationship? What? Jeff, we don't have a relationship. We're friends. That's it."

"Come on, Annie. We go on dates. We hold hands. We kiss. That is not a normal friendship."

Annie took a few deep breath while she thought. "Okay. We're not friends. So maybe we are in a relationship. What's so wrong with that?"

"What's wrong is that without realizing it we became each other's rebound."

"So?"

"Rebounds never end well, Annie. They're just there to fill the void until you get over the person that dumped you. They're placeholders. And I don't think I could stand being your placeholder."

"So… you're dumping me? You're dumping me and we aren't even really dating."

 

"Annie…" he started, but she was already out of the car, slamming the door and stalking toward her house.

===========

It was four in the morning and Jeff wasn't sleeping anyway when he heard something that sounded like rocks hitting his bedroom window. He got of bed to investigate and discovered that it sounded like rocks hitting his window because there were rocks hitting his window. Being thrown by Annie. Who had a surprisingly good arm.

For a moment he thought maybe she was trying to kill him. He's broken her heart and now she was going to throw rocks at his window until one struck him in the head. But then he realized that she was throwing tiny rocks. And she didn't look mad. And she was making "come outside" motions with her hands.

He threw on a jacket and rushed down the stairs and out the door to where Annie was standing. "You could have just buzzed the door."

"I wasn't sure you'd hear it."

Jeff looked Annie over. She was in her pajamas, too, a hideous green and orange pants and shirt set, and she was wearing the oversized Riverside High sweatshirt that Jeff hated.

"What's going on, Annie?"

"You aren't my placeholder," she said.

"What?"

"You aren't my placeholder. You aren't filling any void that Vaughn left. I don't really think he left a void. Because…. I think he was the placeholder. I was trying to fill a void that was already there with him."

"Troy?" Jeff guessed.

"No," Annie said. "You. I think, ever since we kissed at the debate, I was just waiting for you. Even though I didn't realize it. You aren't my rebound from Vaughn. Vaughn was my rebound from you. I was just… doing it backwards."

Jeff thought about it, wondering if he had done the same thing with Michelle. It was true that he never actively pursued an actual relationship with someone until after Annie had kissed him. He thought back to the weeks after the debate, when thoughts of Britta and pretty much every other girl had been replaced by that one brief moment with Annie. And he realized, "Yeah, I think maybe that's what I was doing, too."

Annie smiled brightly at him, and Jeff quickly cleared the space between them, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. This time it was a little handsy and a little tonguey and a lot relationshippy.

When they pulled apart Annie asked, "So was that a friends kiss or a relationship kiss?"

"See, I think that's the beauty of it," Jeff said. She looked at him questioningly. "With us it can be both."

And he kissed her again.

THE END.


End file.
